Final GPLv3 draft leaves Novell in the clear

Submitted by Ty on June 22, 2007 - 9:00am

The Free Software Foundation has released the final draft of an updated General Public License, a draft that prohibits future deals similar to the Microsoft-Novell patent pact, but lets that deal go ahead.

The Novell-Microsoft deal, in which Microsoft agreed to sell coupons for Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server and not to sue buyers for patent infringement, raised the foundation's ire when the companies announced it in November 2006. The previous GPLv3 draft had banned distributing software covered by such deals, but the foundation hadn't decided whether the document should apply to all of them of just future ones.